


Not Quite Dead, No Longer A Dream

by ArlandRedd



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Abuse, I suppose technically it's an AU, Language, M/M, Minor Violence, Night Terrors, Past Abuse, Slow Burn, blood tw, but it's basically just canon with a couple things tweaked around for my own amusement, canon adjacent, implied Adam/Blue, just covering my bases here, oh and it's Ronan so of course there's
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-06-10 18:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15297426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArlandRedd/pseuds/ArlandRedd
Summary: Adam is a secret, and keeping secrets of his own. Ronan, unable to leave well enough alone, goes digging and unearths much more than either of them bargained for.In which the events of canon are changed only by the fact that Adam Parrish isn'tAdam Parrish.





	1. Genesis 2:7

It was dead. It had to be dead.

Ronan kept repeating it to himself, a mantra that did nothing to calm his thundering heart—the only part of him that seemed to be moving. He had brought something back, he knew he had; the sleep paralysis wouldn’t be this bad if nothing had followed him.

_Move, **move,**_ Ronan thought, ferociously trying to wiggle his fingers, his toes, _anything_. The room was quiet, a not-terrible sign. The night terror wouldn’t be this quiet if it wasn’t dead.

It was only when Ronan had gathered his faculties enough to sit up that he heard it: a low, shuffling scrabble, a feeble sound—but too big to be Chainsaw.

_**Fucking—** _

Ronan lurched without thinking, grasping for something, _anything_ , and his fingers curled around Matthew’s forgotten baseball bat.

_Where is it **where is it** —_

It was hard to tell in the pressing dark, but it took only seconds to find the mass of feathers and blood and talons beginning to rustle on the concrete floor of his bedroom. Ronan swung; the bat came down hard.

The noise was bound to have woken Gansey, a light and fitful sleeper on the best of nights. Fucking hell. But at least _now_ it was dead.

Ronan sat, shaking, on the edge of the bed. The aluminum bat slipped from his blood-slicked fingers but did not clatter, stopped by the glistening body of the creature. He’d have to buy his brother another one, there was no way he could give the bat back now.

For a moment it was all Ronan could do to sit there, waiting, listening, hardly breathing. Chainsaw chirruped and flapped in her cage, cranky at being woken, but otherwise…

Nothing.

Could Gansey really still be asleep? And Noah? He might have almost considered it a miracle if he believed in that sort of thing anymore. Ronan’s chest was heaving, and he stared at the blood smeared across his hands.  _He_ was awake.

_Shit._

Gansey was going to have an aneurysm when he saw the mess of the creature on the floor—more because of the creature than the mess, granted, but still. At the very least he was going to give Ronan that _look_ , that look of both reproach, which he could handle, and what had to be pity, which he couldn’t. But he would know the best way to handle Ronan’s dead terror, had already helped him bury a couple this semester. And, much as he would never admit it, Ronan respected Gansey, looked up to him, trusted his judgment.

Which was exactly why Ronan couldn’t bear the thought of Gansey knowing he had done this _again_. He hated that he felt like a five-year old, trying to hide soiled bedsheets—actually, that might be a decent way to get the damn thing out of the room. Quieter than trash bags.

“He wouldn’t be mad,” Noah’s voice murmured from his dark doorway, nearly making Ronan jump out of his skin.

“ _Jesus_ , Noah,” Ronan growled, “You trying to give me a fucking heart attack?”

It was too dark to see Noah’s face, but Ronan could almost  _feel_ Noah shrink back, just outside the door Ronan hadn’t heard him open. “You know he wouldn’t,” he insisted on a breath. “He would help.”

_I know, that’s the fucking **problem**_ , Ronan thought. He could feel his lips starting to curl into a snarl. “So could _you_ , you know.” When Noah flinched, Ronan remembered to check himself. There were very few people who deserved Ronan’s restraint, and even those on that list deserved it only rarely, but Noah was one of them. And this night… it felt like the last time Noah had found him after a night terror, just with less blood. “This is the last thing he needs, Noah.”

Noah’s half-visible shrug was more mournful than noncommittal. “Maybe he just needs to know you’re okay.”

Ronan couldn’t let himself blow up at Noah if he wanted to keep from waking Gansey, but his hands still curled into fists and his mouth into a snarl. “Watch it, Noah—I don’t have to listen to you bitch at me, so either help me out or get lost.”

Noah fidgeted, uncertain, and sighed. “I’m not sure I can...handle that thing,” he said, but he didn’t walk away, either.

The nausea in his voice cooled Ronan’s irritation a fraction. “Then don’t.”

“But I know where you can bury it.”

 

******

 

It would have been less creepy in the dead of night. In pitch-blackness, with Henrietta’s lack of light pollution, he wouldn’t be able to see them all.

Now, however, in the dim grayness that was still too early to really be called _morning_ , the field almost seemed to glow with the soft light reflecting off of a thousand white Mitsubishis. The sight of it was as much a revelation as a confirmation: _Forger_ , Ronan thought, the realization pooling uneasily in his gut. How had Noah known about this place?

_It’s a graveyard for dream-things,_ Noah had said, _which is what you want, isn’t it?_

Ronan did not pause to think about the fact that Kavinsky seemed to have a whole field’s worth of dreamt screw-ups as opposed to Ronan’s handful; on the surface it might have vindicated him a little, but the rows and rows of Mitsubishis stretching to the distance felt eerily _intentional_ next to Ronan’s accidental terrors, and he didn’t want to follow that train of thought. No, Ronan only looked at the almost-infinite variations on the same car for about a minute before turning back to his BMW to haul the corpse out of the trunk.

The edges of the field were lined with trees; not as dense as the forest in Cabeswater, but the spreading canopies of beech and maple would still be enough cover. If— _when_ Kavinsky came back to this place, Ronan didn’t want him to find the body, to know that someone else had been here. He had to make two trips: the first to drag the bedsheet-wrapped creature to the base of a beech about ten cars deep in the field, and another to retrieve the shovel. Ronan moved a few yards further into the trees, away from the field, letting his eyes adjust to the dark.

He began to dig.

Pale yellow light was filtering through the foliage by the time Ronan, filthy and sweating, tamped dirt over the shallow grave. Even this early in the morning, the air was heavy with humid Virginia summer, and insects were already humming to life in the trees. Ronan wiped his forehead on the back of his arm and spared one last look for the freshly turned earth. Would Kavinsky even venture this far into the trees? Should he bother to try and disguise the obvious grave?

Strewing a bit of bracken over it shouldn’t hurt. Just something to make the forest floor look less disturbed than it did already. Thankfully there was plenty: the spring rains hadn’t washed away most of last fall’s leaves. Tossing the shovel aside, Ronan bent down by the base of the tree and started pushing plant debris and dirt around the grave. He was trying to make it look even, to make it look  _not_ disturbed rather than deliberately disturbed, but that was surprisingly difficult; Ronan had to gather from the surrounding trees as well. The leaves were almost calf-deep in places—either this place hadn’t been touched in a long time, or someone had tried even harder than Ronan was now to make it look that way.

He wasn’t ready for it, wasn’t expecting it, and that was what made him jump back, scramble unsuccessfully for the shovel before his brain caught up. In all his shuffling around in the underbrush the  _last_ thing he expected to touch was _skin_.

Dammit, he was  _done_ with being startled today, done with the sick feeling of dread in his stomach. Ronan grit his teeth, braced himself, and gingerly went back to investigate. With both hands, he swept the leaves aside, slower than before. He almost didn’t want to know what it was; he was tempted to just leave, to drive away and never think of this place again, but… he couldn’t just leave  _not_ knowing. His heartbeat thrummed in his fingertips; it didn’t feel like he was breathing. Had Kavinsky also buried something out here, in the secrets under the trees?

The hand underneath the leaves was filthy and limp, fingers curled around nothing. Time froze in a hum of expletives whirring through Ronan’s head.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Ronan hissed, and before he realized it he was already scrabbling to uncover the arm attached to the hand, the body attached to the arm. It wasn’t just loose leaf litter and debris covering the body— _roots_ had grown over and around it, around _him_ , which shouldn’t have been possible because he was not decomposed. At all.

In fact, Ronan was pretty sure the boy in the underbrush was still _breathing_.

As if that weren’t enough of a startle for one morning, the roots that had curled almost possessively around the boy began to move, unfurling, retreating back into the soil. The movement of the earth shifted the body closer to Ronan; once again, it felt eerily _intentional_.

Ronan knew he couldn’t dissect what all of this meant right now. He was aware of the litany of curses he was muttering under his breath, though he hadn’t directed his mouth to say anything, as he cleared away the last of the bracken. What the hell was this guy  _doing_ out here?

It was a teenager, underneath all of that—he must have been about Ronan’s age, maybe a little younger, though not by much. His clothes were faded, almost threadbare: a t-shirt that may once have been red, with a worn Coca-Cola logo across the chest, and loose torn jeans, not quite blue anymore. Even underneath a layer of dirt, Ronan could tell this boy was nice to look at, fine-boned, with big eyes and full lashes. He  _was_ breathing.

The stream of profanity trickled to a stop; Ronan felt his breath catch in his chest. What was he supposed to  _do_ about this? He couldn’t just  _leave_ this guy here, but he had come out here to bury a dead thing, not to bring home a living one. A person was a lot more to explain than a raven—Gansey wouldn’t like it.  _Ronan_ didn’t like it.

Ronan didn’t have the energy to be startled yet again, so when the boy’s lashes fluttered open, he couldn’t manage to do much more than stare. His eyes were as blue as the summer sky, and he shifted like he was going to sit up, confused and groggy.

If Ronan had been as devout a Catholic as either of his brothers, he might have crossed himself; as it was, he leaned back to give the guy some space. All the words he wanted to say right now involved some kind of expletive, so he kept his mouth shut—he was an asshole, sure, but there was something electric and surreal about this moment, and he felt like swearing might ruin that. Was this field on the ley line? Ronan’s brain didn’t have the capacity to piece together the geography right now.

The boy rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and, blinking, looked over at Ronan. “Who’re you?” he asked. His voice was rough with disuse, but the long vowels and rounded-off consonants were unmistakably local.

Ronan quirked a disbelieving eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing.”

The boy’s elegant features creased inward, thoughtful but more confused than ever. “I... don’t know,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t think I have a name, anymore.”

_The fuck does he mean, ‘anymore’?_ Ronan thought. His eyes narrowed—a scowl on anyone else, but for him, a calculating expression. “Then what the hell am I supposed to call you?”

That was worth a moment’s thought, it seemed; but the look he gave Ronan at the end of it was tragic and resigned, his eyes intensely blue in his filthy face. “Whatever you want to, I guess.” The way he said it left a mournful, unspoken _I don’t care_ hanging off the end.

An indignation that was not unlike pity rose in Ronan’s throat; he stared for a few more seconds at this boy that might as well have been delivered from the trees. A half-remembered bit of Scripture snagged on his train of thought, something like _from the dust of the earth_ followed by _and man became a living soul._

“Adam,” Ronan breathed, a more hoarse and fervent sound than he was expecting or would have liked, “I think I’ll call you Adam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this loosely based off of Hozier's 'Like Real People Do'? yes. Do I care? not really.  
> Hi! I'm Ari, and this is my first work published on AO3! (we do not speak of ffn.net). I can't promise regular or frequent updates because I'm swamped with school and work, but I'm hoping this can turn into something beautiful!  
> Kudos and comments are much appreciated!


	2. Making Different Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to deal with what was once buried and now isn't.

_Adam. My name is Adam._

He stared at his hands, finally scrubbed clean, curled purposelessly in his lap. It felt surreal and out of place, to be here in this tiny wood-paneled church not-attic, in borrowed clothes, sitting on a bare mattress in the middle of the floor.

_I can be Adam now. Adam. Adam._

He had woken in that sun-dappled glen and thought, for a moment, that it had _worked_. And apparently it had, in ways Adam had yet to understand: he had emerged from the trees and into the sea of white, the blinding metal of a thousand cars, and his heart had dropped like a stone into his stomach.

The one who had found him, who’d dug him up, what had his name been— _Ronan_ —had told him to wait here, in the little room above the church. Get cleaned up and wait, and he would be back.

Adam wanted to believe that was true, but in his experience, when someone said they were going to come back, they didn’t. He’d always had to go looking. But things could be different, now. _He_ could be different, now.

 _Adam. My name is Adam._ A name courtesy of someone he did not know, but who had looked at him like, like…

Like _he_ had, once.

But things were different now, he reminded himself, as he had over and over and over. And different could be better.

How different could he really _be_ , though, if all he wanted to do right now was _leave?_

******

“ _Did you know?_ ”

He wasn’t spitting mad, yet, but he was getting there. The parts of Ronan’s brain that weren’t sleep-deprived or mildly hungover wanted to hit something.

In his periphery, Gansey looked up from the desk, but Ronan wasn’t focused on him; Noah, perched on the edge of Gansey’s bed, had all his attention. “Know what?” Noah’s voice was wary in the face of Ronan’s blustering.

“ _You’re_ the one who said it was a graveyard,” Ronan hissed, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Did you know there was a _person_ buried out there?”

Wood scraped against concrete as Gansey rose from his chair, but Ronan had already made it across the scale model of Henrietta and was practically in Noah’s face, so he didn’t see.

“Ronan.”

The way Gansey said it, _Ro_ -nan, felt like a chain yanking at a collar around his throat; it stopped him in his tracks. _Dammit, Gansey_.

“You found a body out there?” Noah asked. His voice was breathy, far away, and the parts of him that weren’t smudgy were white as a sheet.

“No, I found a _person_ ,” Ronan corrected through his teeth. “A living, breathing, _buried_ , person.” His hands were already in fists, so it didn’t take much for Ronan to dig his fingernails into his palms, to ground himself a little. He shot a glance at Gansey, who was almost unconsciously reaching for his journal. “A person buried in what you called a _graveyard_ , Noah—coincidence?” Gansey of all people would know that meant it couldn’t be.

“Where is this person now?” Gansey asked, in his best magnanimous-concern voice, but Ronan could hear the scholar-desperate-for-an-interview underneath it.

“I’ll answer your questions when _he_ answers _mine_ ,” Ronan snarled, jabbing a thumb in Noah’s direction.

Gansey pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head slightly, eyes closed. He knew that having a conversation with Ronan meant picking his battles. “Do I want to know what this is about?” he asked.

“ _No_ ,” Ronan snapped at the same time Noah said, “ _Do_ you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Gansey retorted in answer to both of them. “Apparently I need to, because it’s _strange_ and it’s Henrietta and we all know what that usually means. That, and I don’t want Ronan to murder anybody, least of all you, Noah.”

“He’d have to get in line,” Noah said, his voice low and plaintive. He turned to Ronan, his face tragic as any religious icon. “I didn’t know anyone was out there, I swear.”

“Bullshit.” Ronan said it through his teeth. “‘It’s a graveyard for dream-things,’ that’s what you told me.”

“ _Things_ ,” Noah insisted, “Not a _person_.”

The noise Ronan made then was not exactly a scoff, more of a _tch_. “But how did he _get_ there, Noah?”

“I don’t know—it’s not _my_ graveyard.”

“Back up. _What_ graveyard are we talking about? And what were you doing out there, Ronan?” Gansey asked. He had the journal open in one hand now, and was feeling for a pen on the desk behind him.

Ronan shot him a look. “Kavinsky’s,” he ground out. He wouldn’t dignify Gansey’s second question with a response—he wasn’t stupid enough to _not_ guess the obvious —and instead turned back to Noah. “Are you saying Kavinsky left someone for dead out there?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Noah wailed again, though he was saved from having to elaborate further by the _thump_ of Gansey’s journal snapping shut.

“Ronan.” When Gansey said it this time, it felt less like a restraint and more like a summons. “You said this person was alive—was he conscious?”

“When I left him he was,” Ronan grumbled.

“Then let’s just go ask him.”

******

Adam wandered into the parts of Henrietta that were deliberately unfamiliar, as though the _newness_ of it would make it feel like he had really _left_ —though, that was difficult to do in a town so small. Some part of him knew that he would end up going back to that little room above the church, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. What he wanted right now was to do something _by_ himself, _for_ himself.

His stomach made an unhappy gurgling noise.

Frankly, that shouldn’t have surprised Adam—when Ronan had told him the date, he had done the mental math and come away with the thought, _Was I really gone that long?_ And, considering that he still hadn’t eaten since he’d been dug up this morning, he was more surprised that his stomach hadn’t complained sooner.

And for the first time since he’d woken up, Adam felt just helpless enough to feel a twinge of regret. What was he proving, out here, hungry and most likely homeless, without a penny to his new name? He could have stayed—

—but he hadn’t, and he had to deal with what that meant now. Adam shook himself out of it, took a deep breath. Wallowing in it wouldn’t change anything. This was different, he reminded himself. He had _wanted_ different. And different could be better. He would _make_ it better.

He walked for another little while, looking for a place he didn’t know, someplace he could try to get something to eat. The sun was starting to go down; signs were lighting up on shops along the street. The neon was flickering on and off in a sign from a place that seemed almost familiar: _Nino’s_ blinked in looping red letters from the window.

Adam stared, and stared, and stared. Something about that place felt like he _should_ know it, like he was _supposed_ to know it, somehow. And yet he could have sworn he’d never been there in his life.

Which was exactly what made it perfect. Familiar anonymity.

Adam ducked into the small restaurant, habitually scanning faces. There was no reason that _he_ would be here—while this place wasn’t the most family-friendly, it was a far cry from the dark-and-neon, the smoky press of bodies, that Adam was used to. He probably didn’t need to worry about running into anyone he knew, here.

This would be the worst part, Adam knew: trying to make bargaining not sound like begging. Trying to convince somebody that he could do something worth his keep. _It’s just food_ , he reminded himself, as if that could convince him. As if it were _just_ anything.

The girl at the hostess stand had the most bemusing hair: ink-dark and a little wild, defiant little spikes held back by colorful barrettes or pins. Her clothes were intentionally haphazard enough to look effortlessly cool; she might have been a little intimidating had she not been so _short_. As it was, when she turned to Adam and smiled, something that had been thrumming with panic in his head, settled.

“Welcome to Nino’s! Table for one?” Though her smile was the customer-service sort, the friendliness didn’t seem fake—a little oversaturated, sure, but somehow Adam knew that he could trust her. Maybe it was her accent, her Henrietta vowels as round as his.

“Um. Hi,” Adam shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t wring them together. “Listen, I know this is weird, but I was hoping I could help out around here a little, in exchange for a sandwich or something?”

She blinked, not understanding for a moment before his words clicked. “I—” she started, and then: “Oh.”

Adam followed her look to his chest, to the faded Coca-Cola logo. He had not felt _right_ wearing Ronan’s old clothes, so shortly after he’d washed himself up, he’d run his own clothes under the shower to get the worst of the dirt off and had wrung them out as best he could. Though his jeans still weren’t _quite_ dry, his shirt was, and it was worth it to feel like himself, on some level.

“So that’s what she meant by feeding Coca-Cola,” she muttered, almost resigned.

“I’m sorry?”

She shook her head, like it was a long story. “Something my mom said. Come on, let’s get you something to eat.” She led him through the bustle of the semi-crowded restaurant to a small table tucked in a back corner. “I’m sorry it’s so cramped back here but this way I can help you a lot better.”

“I don’t mind,” Adam said, folding himself into the wooden seat. “And, thank you, for...this.” He waved his hand, a little uselessly, to indicate the situation.

“Not a problem,” she said, perhaps a little too brightly—her customer-service smile was back. “My name’s Blue, I’m gonna go clear this with Mario, and I’ll be right back.” Blue laid a laminated menu on the table in front of him, patted it once, and sauntered off.

It wasn’t that his unease returned because she had left; rather, her departure meant he had nothing left to focus on but himself. He needed to get a grip, make some kind of plan—clearly his last plan hadn’t worked, and it was only a matter of time in a town as small as Henrietta before someone recognized Adam, before someone told _him_. Really, it was a minor miracle that it hadn’t happened yet. 

_Why hadn’t it worked?_

One thing was for certain. He needed to get _out_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, sorry this update took so long! I know I said school and work would make updates slower than I wanted them to be but it's been longer than I ever thought it would be--thank you guys so much for your patience and your support! Kudos and Comments much appreciated!


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